My love for the Tetons began when I was a student at Ricks College. I got my introduction to this mountain range skiing at Grand Targhee, and hiking Table Rock and around Jenny Lake. I even took a mountaineering class and back-country ski class that took me into these mountains several times, the highlight of which was climbing the Middle Teton.

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Here’s a video of our scout trip last weekend. I wish I would have gotten more cross-country skiing footage of the relay race and wipe-outs coming down the powdery snow-covered hill before the camera died, but hope you enjoy it anyway. Thanks to everyone for a great trip. It was a blast!

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Earlier this year I installed shadow box trim wainscoting in the front living room of my cousin’s home, in preparation for a big family event they were planning. Shadow box trim gives a room a more formal and elegant feel. It creates a wainscot a little different from others I’ve done in the past, like bead board and batten board, which I blogged about here.

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If you would like to build sturdy garage overhead mightyshelves as described in my earlier post here, but don’t have attic space above your garage, one of several alternative hardware support methods is required. The original design for these shelves uses threaded rod with washers and nuts. You run a piece of threaded rod through the shelving and up into the attic space where it is secured to a block with washers and nuts that is fastened to the top of the bottom chord of the trusses. But you can only use this method when you have accessible attic space above. When you don’t, (when your house has living space above your garage for example), you’ll need to use an alternative hardware support method. Read more…

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This weekend our scout group went on an over-night backpacking trip around G Mountain. We hiked up Grove Creek and camped in a grove of aspen trees near a meadow. The next morning we crossed over the top of G Mountain and came down via Battle Creek. We hiked a total of 7-8 miles. Here’s a short video of the trip:

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My brother-in-law got a group together for a Grand Canyon trip that we went on last week. We were able to book reservations a year ago to stay at the bottom of Grand Canyon at Phantom Ranch for three nights. Our group consisted of 11 hikers including his siblings, his wife’s sisters (including my wife) and a couple from Farmington, New Mexico who were his neighbors and who have been to the canyon well over a hundred times between the two.

We slept in the cabins and dorms there and enjoyed hot showers, steak dinners, and as many pancakes, eggs, and bacon we could find room for every breakfast. (Having these amenities allowed us to pack light and move efficiently during the descent to the bottom and the climb out). The experienced couple from New Mexico took us on day hikes, guided us down old miner trails, and lead us to a few seldom seen corners of the canyon. Here’s a video of some of the highlights:

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Phones, tablets, iPods, radio control helicopters, GoPro cameras (okay you get the idea)… It seems like just about all the electronic devices out there these days are charged via a USB. So why not install USB wall plugs in your home? They look like a normal outlet, except that they have USB ports. These USB plugs could be installed to replace any existing outlet in your home where you charge your gadgets, eliminating your USB power adapters, and freeing up your standard outlets.

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I built another raised laundry platform recently through my company Lone Pine Construction, a little different from the last couple I discussed in my previous built-in raised laundry platform post, and will show step by step how this one was constructed for those who would like to build one themselves.

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During the winter of ’92 there was a Mount Everest expedition team from Utah that trained using a ridge on the west face of Mount Timpanogos. Since then, it’s been known to locals as Everest Ridge. Almost exactly a year ago, I noticed a friend Paul Knudsen at church with a sunburned face and “raccoon eyes”. It turns out that he had climbed Everest Ridge the previous day. I had heard about that route and we chatted about his trip which prompted an outing together a few weeks later to Heaven’s Half Pipe. This winter he offered to do the Everest Ridge with me.

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For several years now, I’ve been pulling a piece of 1/4″ OSB (waferboard) out of the garage to clear the snow off my driveway after a storm. If the snow isn’t too heavy, it works great, and gets the job done in a HURRY! What may have taken 30 passes with a regular snow shovel only takes four or five swipes with my trusty sheet of OSB.